Washington (CNN) - Conservatives rallied Friday at an annual gathering in Washington, applauding the tea party-fueled standoff in Congress over the government shutdown and debt ceiling debate.

At the Values Voter Summit, sponsored by fiscal and social conservative groups, a number of the right's most high-profile lawmakers lined up to speak on the future of the conservative movement, as well as the stalemate on Capitol Hill.
Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, Rep. Michele Bachmann and Rep. Paul Ryan are among the featured speakers.

The three-day event kicked off Friday morning, but CNN's Peter Hamby spoke to Family Research Council President Tony Perkins about what to expect at the event.

Check back here throughout the day to catch the latest on what the speakers say:

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah

"Ted Cruz hand I have been roundly criticized for our actions in the attempt to defund Obamacare. We make no apologies. We stand with you. We stand with the people."

...

"If you do think about it, the very best argument against Obamacare is the president's conduct during the first 10 days of this shutdown. I mean look what's happened. The president is using the vast immense power of the federal government to hurt the American people. Why? In order to win a political argument! What happens then when we turn over some of the most private intimate decisions in our lives our health care system to the government? When will that be used as a tool against us? We must stop it. We must defund it. We cannot accept it."

...

"As values voters we have to remember that it is far more important to keep our eyes fixed on potential conservatives converts rather than on finding heretics. You see the principles that unite us are also the principles that help position us to win the hearts and the minds of votes across this great land."

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas

"This afternoon President Obama has invited Senate Republicans to the White House. So after leaving here I am going to be going to the White House. I will make a request if I am never seen again please send a search and rescue team. I very much hope tomorrow morning I don’t wake up amidst the Syrian rebels."

...

"It is because of you that the House of Representatives has been standing strong because the House has been listening to the people."

"Senator Mike Lee and I began by pitching it in Washington and it was abundantly clear that this was not a strategy that Washington was going to embrace. It was far too risky and if there was one overarching urge in Washington, it is risk aversion. Do nothing, nothing, nothing that has any risk that it might actually do anything."

While Cruz received an enthusiastic reception from the crowd, he was interrupted multiple times by hecklers.

"I wish you would participate in the democratic process through speaking respectfully," he said to one heckler. "It seems that President Obama's paid political operatives are out in force today. And you know why? Because the men and women in this room scare the living daylights out of you."

Responding to another, he said: "I'm curious, is anybody left in the Organizing for America headquarters? I'm actually glad that the president's whole political staff is here instead of actually doing mischief in the country."

"At this point," he said to another heckler. "You know what's striking actually? In the course of this brief speech, we've heard more questions than President Obama's allowed in the past year."

...

"Let me make an offer to the president: I would welcome the president, if he wants to get a 100 of his most rabid political operatives in a room, I will answer their questions on television as long as he likes. And in exchange, all I would ask, Mr. President, is you take not a hundred but 10 men and women in this room and spend 30 minutes answering their questions for the American people."

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky

“Today I want to talk about war media ignoring – from Boston to Zanzibar there’s a war on Christianity and they are being attacks but you don’t hear about it because it’s not convenient. The press gloss over attacks on Christians and describes it as sectarian but it’s being waged by fanatics of Islam.”

...

“Across the globe, Christians are under attack almost as if we lived in the Middle Ages or we lived under early pagan Roman rule. This administration does nothing to stop it and it can be argued that it is giving aid and comfort to those who tolerate these crimes.”

“Earlier this year, I forced the Senate to vote to defund the Muslim Brotherhood and every Democrat voted to continue sending your money to the Muslim Brotherhood,” Paul said. “I can tell you one thing, as long as I am in the Senate, I will fight against sending any money to the Muslim brotherhood."

...

“We send billions of dollars to Egypt to Pakistan. We have helped place Islamic regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. President Obama now sends arms to Islamic rebels in Syria. In Egypt, the mob that attacked our embassy climbed on top our embassy and burned out flag, I don’t know about you, but I have had enough. I say not one penny more to any country that would burn the American flag.”

Sen. Marco Rubio, R- Florida

"Maybe the American Dream may never be what it used to be, So we ask ourselves why is this happening and there's a lot of reasons. Globalization has changed the nature of our economy. You have all these jobs that have gone overseas because of cheaper labor costs. Millions of jobs have been replaced by machines...Too many people never got the education or the skills they need for the jobs that the new economy is creating. And big government is keeping our economy from creating new middle class jobs that people desperately need."

...

"The liberal answer to all this is just have the government spend more money. Look, there's a role for government, but no matter how much money the government spends – it will never be able to take the place of parents and strong families."

...

"By this point I had hoped someone would have heckled me, so that I could sip some water."

...

"I believe Jesus Christ is God," he said, pausing for a long round applause. "I believe he loves every single human being that has ever lived–no matter what they have done, even if they don't believe in him. That's why suffered a brutal death and he resurrected from the dead to erase the sins that separate us from him. I respect the rights of those who don't share my beliefs. But to teach my faith to my children and to share it with anyone who will listen, that is my right, too."

Sen. Tim Scott, South Carolina

"We can not have a president who picks and chooses. He says 'I don't really like the marriage laws,' so he doesn't enforce them. He says 'I don't like the immigration laws and I will go around them.' He says 'I don't even like the Obamacare law so I am going to delay a part of it.' I mean what is that? What is that all about?"

...

"We have to get back to fiscal sanity to save America. You see I think we have lost our way because we forgot the 'why.' Why are we here? I think there is good news though. I am a big beliver that even in the midst of a storm, the Word works."

Dr. Ben Carson, neurosurgeon

"I have to tell you, you know, Obamacare is really, I think, the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery. And it is – in a way, it is slavery, in a way because – because it is making all of us subservient to the government. And it was never about health care. It was about control. And that’s why – that’s why when this administration took office it didn’t matter that the country was going off the cliff economically. All forces were directed toward getting this legislation passed."

...

"When they begin to neglect the Constitution, when they begin to impose their own will, when they look at laws of the land and they say, OK, I think I’ll enforce this one, this one I won’t, when they begin to treat people differently, they say these are my friends, you don’t have to do that but all the rest of you have to do something, when they say the people in the – in the executive branch and the legislative branch don’t have to participate in certain programs but everybody else has to, when they give businesses exemptions but the common people they say, no, you have to do it, you know, that’s not America. That’s Russia. That’s someplace else. How did we allow that to happen in this nation?"

"My colleagues and I are working to get a budget agreement. It's been slow going, but I want to make the most of this moment. We have an opportunity here to pay down the national debt and jump-start the economy. Divided government is frustrating. But our country is worth the effort. We have to make it work. Now, this President won't agree to everything we need to do. A budget agreement-with this President and this Senate-won't solve our problems. But I hope it's a start."

...

"The way I see it, our job is to preserve our values in the 21st century. We need to apply our principles to the challenges of today. That means we need to completely rethink government's role in our lives. We need to completely rethink government's role in helping the most vulnerable. We need to completely rethink of government's role in health care. That means we can never give up on repealing and replacing Obamacare."

Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minnesota

"You see the Obama administration is turning us into a police line. I say we are not a police line. You can choose that or mister President or you can choose to follow article two in the Constitution of the United States."

...

"This is a big fight. We're supposed to be ashamed this fight is about Obamacare, I'm not. I'm not ashamed. When Obamacare passed I was there that night. Grieving, weeping on the floor when Obamacare passed in the House or Representatives. I had made the first call to the American people. And I called you all to come into Washington, D.C. to look at the whites of the eyes of members of Congress and say to them 'not with my healthcare you don't.' 40,000 of you responded and came to Washington D.C. That created the rise of the tea party."

...

"I submit to you today what is at risk in all of this is whether we will be the police line state or whether we will be a Constitutional republic. It is that grave and that consequential."

The Grand New Party ... yes? I almost feel sorry for the Republican party. Well, OK ... not really. Moderates courted these fools for 5 long years. Let's see where the GOP moderates go from here. Either they purge themselves of TeaPers or they purge the Republican party into oblivion.

It's their call.

October 11, 2013 10:12 am at 10:12 am |

NEVER to VOTE REPUBLICAN again

I can't stand to look at that man.....

October 11, 2013 10:16 am at 10:16 am |

sonny chapman

Why don't they all move to one State & secede. This time, let'em.

October 11, 2013 10:16 am at 10:16 am |

Randy, San Francisco

Not surprising as the national Republican brand is fading slowly into irrelevance, hardcore conservatives are embracing firebrand extremists like Sen Ted Cruz as its leaders.

October 11, 2013 10:17 am at 10:17 am |

Al-NY,NY

Fools never learn. The fact that they were applauding the shutdown gives everyone ample proof that they want hold the country hostage to their warped ideals

October 11, 2013 10:19 am at 10:19 am |

The Real Tom Paine

If you take the total experience of the people mentioned and add it up, it barely breaks 30 years. I'm sure that the GOP argument will be that they need fresh blood and new ideas, but they are not getting new ideas. Just another group of ideologues who will take their marching orders from the lobbyists on K Street and the heads of the astroturf groups, and they will engage in legislative stalemate every few months, bringing everything to a halt. Only Ryan has offered anything that could be described as a plan, and it went nowhere: is that productive? Is that what we pay these people 175K a year to do?

October 11, 2013 10:20 am at 10:20 am |

Rudy NYC

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah

"Ted Cruz hand I have been roundly criticized for our actions in the attempt to defund Obamacare. We make no apologies. We stand with you. We stand with the people."
-------------------------–
The question is this. What "people" is he really talking about? Romney told us, "Corporations are people, too, my friend." I think that corporations are the only "people" that Republicans ever actually mean.

October 11, 2013 10:24 am at 10:24 am |

rs

These fools simply don't get it.
1. Americans are not standing with the GOP (now the most unpopular party in America ever-confirmed by two recent polls)
2. 75 % of Americans disagreed with shutting down the government as a means to anything
3. The ACA is law and people are signing up- enough already!
4. The GOP still has no plan to end this stupidity- just like their war in Iraq
5. The more "mature" GOP has dumped the silliness over the ACA- yet we still see Lee and Cruz shilling for the Kochs on TV
Clearly, these people, Cruz, Lee, Bachmann, etc. do not support the existance of the America most citizens love and honor. They ought to be drummed out of office and jailed as domestic terrorists

I'm just sitting back and LMAO at the GOP. 2008 changed the game in politics. The old, pale leaders of the GOP didn't believe then Senator Obama would beat Hillary in the primaries. They so completely underestimated Obama, but I digress.

Once Hillary was out and Obama was in, who then went on to decimate McCain, they lost their collective minds. Enter the Tea Party, whom republikkkans looked at as the answer to all of their problems. They welcomed them KNOWING their views. They let them do all the dirty work, so they could keep their hands clean. The Tea Party immediately began their racist diatribe while the GOP sat on the sidelines silent. The problem with extremists is, they won't be controlled, they do the controlling. That is what the GOP is now finding out.

You lay with dogs, you wake up with fleas. Woof woof GOP!

October 11, 2013 10:30 am at 10:30 am |

Michael

Ted Cruz ( Canadian ) Said in his speech That America was 400 years old ??? Who vote's for this guy

October 11, 2013 10:32 am at 10:32 am |

Data Driven

Hey Obama, they're all in one place. Clap em up in gaol for sedition against the United States.

October 11, 2013 10:42 am at 10:42 am |

Sniffit

"potential conservatives converts "

Two words: endangered species.

October 11, 2013 10:46 am at 10:46 am |

Dave Scoven

I think it's past time for the RNC to cut the Tea Party loose. There are too many really smart and rational Republicans who are being hurt by all of this nonsense. Smart, rational Democrats need smart rational Rupublicans to work with, and vice versa. It's like Yin and Yang. The two make the process work better, and yield superior results. I'm not suggesting that the extremist Tea Party members shouldn't be able to send their reps to Washington. I'm only saying that the Tea Party needs to be seperate for the Republican Party, because it isn't doing the Republican Party any good (at best), and is destroying the Republican Party's reputation (at best).

October 11, 2013 10:54 am at 10:54 am |

Rudy NYC

Michael

Ted Cruz ( Canadian ) Said in his speech That America was 400 years old ??? Who vote's for this guy
----------------------------–
What he said is true, from a certain point of view. Jamestown, Virginia was the biggest port for slave traders. Jamestown was established in 1607, which makes former slave port just over 400 years old.

October 11, 2013 11:06 am at 11:06 am |

joe

why does being a conservative go hand and hand with being so negative all the time? where is there positive vision for the middle class and our country? the only thing that ever comes out of their mouth is anti-everything. all i ever hear doomsday propaganda. they hate things just to hate them. they don't like anything good. they are so far out to lunch it is not surprising their popularity is at a all-time low.

October 11, 2013 11:07 am at 11:07 am |

Sniffit

"I think it's past time for the RNC to cut the Tea Party loose. "

Indeed. I was just talking with someone about this very thing and we concluded that it may happen the other way around and that Boehner's going to face a vote of no confidence in the coming couple weeks after the debt ceiling is raised and the govt' gets funded and re-opened. We're thinking this just might be the incident that instigates the Teatrolls taking it to new and unheard of heights of crazy, cutting the GOP loose and making their play to have a sortof coup within the party, take it over and then purge and ostracize all whom they deem moderates, heretics, RINOs and traitors.

October 11, 2013 11:10 am at 11:10 am |

Anonymous

Cruz to hecklers: "I wish you would participate in the democratic process through speaking respectfully"
---
And I wish you would shut-up. You will get the same respect you have given the President, the American people,
and your own Party. None.
I hope you know how to behave in the White House, you seem pretty bumbling to me. That's what one would
expect from a classless dolt.

October 11, 2013 11:16 am at 11:16 am |

freedom

"the very best argument against Obamacare is the president's conduct during the first 10 days of this shutdown. I mean look what's happened. The president is using the vast immense power of the federal government to hurt the American people. Why? In order to win a political argument! What happens then when we turn over some of the most private intimate decisions in our lives our health care system to the government? When will that be used as a tool against us? We must stop it. We must defund it. We cannot accept it." Mike Lee

October 11, 2013 11:24 am at 11:24 am |

S. B. Stein

The problem is that many of these people are "preaching to the choir" and don't want to understand or see the other side of the issue. If they did and saw the need to get people covered with medical insurance, then maybe this group would provide an alternate plan to ACA.

October 11, 2013 11:31 am at 11:31 am |

rs

freedom

"the very best argument against Obamacare is the president's conduct during the first 10 days of this shutdown. I mean look what's happened. The president is using the vast immense power of the federal government to hurt the American people. Why? In order to win a political argument! What happens then when we turn over some of the most private intimate decisions in our lives our health care system to the government? When will that be used as a tool against us? We must stop it. We must defund it. We cannot accept it." Mike Lee
________________________
It is what it is: anti-American drivel.These people simply need to grow up.

October 11, 2013 11:37 am at 11:37 am |

Gunderson

Wow,
Old Gunderson no understand. rs say Conservative/Republician Party dead. No kidding rs say so. So why all you Experts kick dog when down? You afraid Dog not dead, yet? Why you all scared? Conservatives/Republician's provide jobs save you butt. You bite hand feed you. You Get Obama Care lose job. You still scared? Small Clue. Dump Obama Care. you be better off.

October 11, 2013 11:52 am at 11:52 am |

Thomas

"preaching to the choir"

A choir paid for by the right wing lobby .

October 11, 2013 11:55 am at 11:55 am |

Rudy NYC

"...Once Hillary was out and Obama was in, who then went on to decimate McCain, they lost their collective minds. Enter the Tea Party, whom republikkkans looked at as the answer to all of their problems. They welcomed them KNOWING their views. They let them do all the dirty work, so they could keep their hands clean. The Tea Party immediately began their racist diatribe while the GOP sat on the sidelines silent. The problem with extremists is, they won't be controlled, they do the controlling. That is what the GOP is now finding out."
----------------------------
I don't think that Republicans let them in as much as they were invaded by a cabal of well financed candidates promoting extreme right wing social engineering. It was a message that haters could identify with and embrace.

October 11, 2013 12:11 pm at 12:11 pm |

ga.democrat

The idiots are rallying while the government is shutdown and people are suffering. What a pathetic group of losers.
They are laughing, telling jokes, spewing hatred, and preening for the cameras. Who votes for these morons?

October 11, 2013 12:16 pm at 12:16 pm |

guest

every single politician that profits, If they accept donations from investors and companies that have profited, from selling short on default cds's needs to be tried for insider trading, treason, conspiracy, racketeering, terrorism, and they need to be shipped off to gitmo to be held with no trial.

They never planned to default, just to get people to buy default insurance, before they vote to avoid default while selling short and making a bundle.